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Wu-Tang’s $2 million album saga to become movie

By | Published on Wednesday 26 August 2020

Wu-Tang Clan

The saga of Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’ album is set to be told in a new Netflix movie. The project will be helmed by ‘Brittany Runs A Marathon’ director Paul Downs Colaizzo.

‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’, of course, was the 2014 Wu-Tang album of which only a single copy was made, sold at auction for a reported $2 million. It later turned out that the buyer was entrepreneur Martin Shkreli, who had already made headlines by buying up the rights to HIV medication Daraprim and then majorly hiking up the price.

RZA and other members of the hip hop group said that the deal went through before Shkreli became such a controversial figure and expressed dismay that they had sold the record to him. RZA attempted to buy the album back, unsuccessfully, as the contract with Shkreli forbade it.

Shkreli, meanwhile, attempted to launch himself as something of a comic book villain – thwarted by the fact he lives in the real world. After subsequently being convicted of fraud, he was forced to hand over millions of dollars and various assets, including the ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’ CD.

Although the album’s whereabouts now isn’t entirely clear, RZA said two years ago that he was happy with how the project had ultimately panned out, telling Rolling Stone: “It’s kind of crazy. The record has become an entity, very different from a lot of albums. It’s like the Mona Lisa. It’s got its own folklore, and that’s what me and [co-producer] Cilvaringz wanted”.

According to Collider, RZA is also a producer on the new film project. No casting or release date for the movie has yet been announced.



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